March 6, 2017 - First Solar Satellite

First Solar Satellite The Space Age was just five years old when NASA’s first Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO-1) was launched this week in 1962. OSO-1 was the first satellite to conduct extended scientific observations of the Sun from space. The first of eight OSO satellites, OSO-1 was 1.2 meters (4 ft) in diameter and weighed 200 kg (440 lbs). It measured solar radiation in the UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray regions of the spectrum, and it was the first spacecraft with onboard tape recorders for data storage. OSO-1 was fully operational for several months before its tape recorder failed, and it continued to transmit real-time data until its batteries died in 1964. This extreme ultraviolet view of a complex of active solar loops was obtained by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in 2014.